


Asphyxia

by London_Fog



Category: Dragon Age II, Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 14:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1391275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/London_Fog/pseuds/London_Fog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just a routine mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asphyxia

**Author's Note:**

> Long time coming. The rest of the fics in this verse won’t be in this style, probably. This had been completed and sitting in my folders for a long time, but I really hope that I get back into this verse (granted, I say that about everything).

War was her most vivid memory.

One of, in any case.

She remembered watching vids of it. The first contact war. Flashing movements, cold steel, bright, orange blades and rapid gunfire, muted. The quiet drone of appliances whirring in the background, accompanied by the seemingly distant of city noise. A deep, soothing drawl, throaty and tired, rumbling behind her, whispering of stars and adventure.

And a bright blue light. Electric, but comforting. Warm hands wrapping thick cloths snugly about her, while she struggled to free herself of it, yearning to touch it. And the voice would only laugh, amused, murmuring to her, ‘ _Not yet_ ,’

It’s her favourite memory. She had been only five.

Maybe she missed the innocence. Maybe she missed her father.

It doesn’t matter. She just wanted to bask in it a little longer.

* * *

Sometimes the dreams were too hazy.

Weighted, withdrawn. A force pulling her away, but all it does is leave her lingering in limbo, waiting, somewhere in confusion.

There’s a constant beeping. Hefty boots on metal floors, rustling cloths. Too much background noise.

And there’s never enough air.

Did someone forget protocol? She’d need to talk to them about it.

She’s gasping, a little, and the lights are too bright, and it’s too cold on her skin. Her heavy body feels too empty, and the world is devoid of that warmness she so desperately craves.

Until she hears a voice, one from a different memory.

Not her father, no. But warm, all the same. Like sunshine and sweet, honeyed mead.

And the voice is desperate like her, perhaps desperate for warmth too.

It calls, keeps calling.

“Hawke.”

“Hawke.”

“ _Marian_.”

* * *

_The Emerius_ had been amazing.

All sleek contours and a polished white coat that gleamed in the hangar’s dim light. It was representative of the peace treaty after the first contact war, someone had said. Best of human and Qunari engineering, outclassing every other stealth frigate in existence.

Not quite her field, but even she could appreciate that.

“Now, that’s a sight.”

Calloused hands slipped around her waist as warm lips pressed gently on the curve of her neck.

“Anders…”

“I meant the  _ship_ ,” He had laughed, resting his chin on her shoulder, “Not that you’re not a sight yourself, Spectre Hawke.”

“Mmhmm.” She sighed. “We’ve really gotten ourselves into it, haven’t we?”

“Ah. But you’ll still come out tops.”

* * *

In the end, she didn’t.

They had a brief illusion that she did. War waged on the Citadel, human and elf and dwarf and qunari, united against a strange alien known only to them as Sovereign. Men and women, civilians and soldiers, numbers as devastated as the Citadel itself had become, but  _they_ , they had survived. In the subsequent ceremonies, they believed they won.

Until the Omega Nebula. It had been a simple patrol. Watching out for one thing or another, but there had been nothing.

No anomalies, not one sign, until it was too late.

The attack struck before they could avoid it.

A red laser, almost lazy in its path, cut through what should have been hyper-reinforced metal and heavy cyclonic shielding, casual and bored.

Contrary, on the Emerius, was utter chaos.

Protocol, protocol. Followed, but pointless. Angry blasts that flung bodies to walls, twisting their necks, leaving them nothing but lifeless corpses. One minute in, and the death toll was at twenty percent. Not a fight – a massacre.

Anders wanted to stay, follow. She told him to leave. Watch the crew. Ensure their safety.

He argued.

She promised to see him back on Earth – no need for a parting kiss, it wasn’t as if one of them was dying, right? The heavy helmet was much too obstructive anyway, and she tapped her own head against Anders’ lightly, before headed towards the stubborn, stubborn pilot’s cockpit.

Isabella had been insistent on staying.

“Leave if you want, Hawke, but I’m not abandoning my ship.” Distressed pressing on the screens. A lost cause. Both the ship and the pilot.

She remembered pulling up her omnitool and hacking the screens, shutting them down.

Isabella only listened then.

The artificial gravity in her boots had been weakening. Careful trudges, if only she could have walked faster.

Isabella slipped into the pod, hand reaching out.

Another blast. The ship’s design really needed re-evaluations, if it was going to explode so easily. She punched the holographic button, sealing the pod and ejecting it, the desperate call from Isabella on her comms ignored. There was always the next one, right?

Bright red light cut into her vision, the ship rocked. A second explosion, and really, they need to reconsider this design.

She felt herself being thrown out. The suit was still insulated, but seeing the bright blue nebula before her felt cold. None of the warmth of biotic, and that was just wrong. Biotics were made of star stuff, wasn’t it?

And then she felt it. A snap, maybe. Or a burst.

Air, losing air.

No.

She had come so far.

No.

 

 

_No._

* * *

Air.

She needs air.

Why was there never enough air?

Cold, emptiness, and so much blinding light, icy, unforgiving.

She gasped sharply, inhaling, desperate once more.

Tepid oxygen filled her lungs, and she calmed down.

Need to think.

“Hawke! Hawke.”

Bright light cleared. She blinked, once, twice. A third time.

She sees honeyed eyes, warm and eager.

“Hawke.”

They both smile. Relieved.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Emerius was the original name of Kirkwall. I thought it sounded better than naming the ship Kirkwall.  
> 2\. The first contact was in ME was humans vs Turians. In this verse it’s the humans vs Qunari.  
> 3\. There are only humans on Earth. The elves, dwarves and qunari are the ‘aliens’. Elves continue to be separated into the Dalish and “city” elves. Imagine the former with more biotics and the latter with more engineers.  
> 4\. Malcolm Hawke was a biotic.  
> 5\. Good thing for Marian – Anders is a renegade sort of character. And a doctor/healer-type.


End file.
